Duncan Murrell

Duncan Murrell is the writer of in residence at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, and a contributing editor of the Oxford American and Harper's Magazine. He lives in Pittsboro, North Carolina.

Not very long ago I was packing my daughter’s Hello Kitty lunchbox when I heard a squeal of brakes and a metallic crunk from the road out front. In the morning commute, a young antlered buck had been walloped in the street by a small car. The deer was still alive but lay on its side against the curb behind the parked car my wife would soon use to drive our daughter to school.